What can I say: I’m a liberal. I have an unfortunate and ill-advised tendency to data dump.

So…for the past year, I’ve been working on a book that I’ve remained mum about, though you have definitely seen me blogging and doing articles on related themes (and publishing guest posts on them)–because one can hardly help oneself. And those of you that enjoyed my first book, The Republican War on Science, will be pretty interested, I think, in the new one. Especially as the campaign heats up.

Now, the deadline is approaching, even as my travel threatens to pick up again–and I find that I could use some research assistance.

In particular, I’m looking for someone willing to help me collect a set of easily available data together into a “study” format where these data can be analyzed—nothing very painful or intensive, but still a little laborious. (But oh, what we shall find! Uh, I think.)

Preferably, this will be someone with statistics training or a social science background. But it doesn’t have to be. Just someone organized would do.

Second, and also kind of important: The blog known as “The Intersection” has been through many changes and iterations over its nearly 10 year existence. And now it is time for another.

We’ve been showing sustained traffic highs here over the past several months, with the help of some great guest bloggers (Jon, Jamie, and occasional others). But Discover & I are nonetheless parting ways.

“The Intersection” is instead relocating to become the central blog of Science Progress, the science policy website of the Center for American Progress.

My intention is certainly to continue to have lots of guest bloggers over there, in addition to myself. So contact me if you want to get involved (links above).

The move will take effect, if all goes swimmingly, on September 12/13. Old posts will remain here, and a permanent redirect update post will be put up. There is no URL yet for the new blog, so stand by on that.

Republican candidates for President of the United States in the current and previous elections have professed—publicly—disbelief in the science of evolution and human-caused climate change. Can you point to anything even remotely as egregious as that on the Democratic side regarding GMOs, anti-vaccince etc? Don’t try to pretend there’s any kind of left-right symmetry on this, and that Chris is merely underreporting cases on the left. The anti-scientific malignancy on the right has grown to the point that individuals who intend to become leader of this nation are trumpeting their ignorance on these subjects.

I for one would like to say that I will miss your commentary, Chris. I don’t agree with you much… well just about ever, but I have enjoyed your perspective and its given me insight into the liberal mindset, especially the deterministic strains of liberal thought. I won’t be following the move. Here I can expect an audience that would be somewhat receptive to my brand on liberalism; there I’d just be a troll with no one wanting to hear a dissenting opinion.

Slight correction: Chris was very forthright about criticizing the Left for anti-vaxism, but later had to change his opinion when new data came out that pretty clearly proved that anti-vaxism is a bipartisan disorder. So the above example is a case of his own fair approach, but is NOT an example of their being a fair distribution of anti-science beliefs between Right and Left.

And yeah, as Sean said at 10: exactly what IS “politically relevant Left-wing anti-science”? Anti-science liberals exist, but with no institutional power. Unless the Democrats have an anti-GMO statement in their platform and I missed it?

Slight correction of that correction…I still think there is something inherently left wing about a lot of vaccine denial. However, the polling data that we have, which are quite imperfect, do not show any clear partisan or ideological divide.

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About Chris Mooney

Chris is a science and political journalist and commentator and the author of three books, including the New York Times bestselling The Republican War on Science--dubbed "a landmark in contemporary political reporting" by Salon.com and a "well-researched, closely argued and amply referenced indictment of the right wing's assault on science and scientists" by Scientific American--Storm World, and Unscientific America: How Scientific Illiteracy Threatens Our Future, co-authored by Sheril Kirshenbaum. They also write "The Intersection" blog together for Discover blogs.
For a longer bio and contact information, see here.